India Tour 2012

Ahmadabad by TMS

Morning everyone.

First of all, humble apologies.

This diary isn’t coming from Ahmadabad at all, rather from my home in Aldershot. I’m following this game on something called ‘TMS’.

I’d like to be able to tell you that at the last minute, like they did with Sky TV, the Indian Broadcasting Authorities insisted upon a £50,000 surcharge to our holiday to allow us to attend the game, but the shameful truth is that we just didn’t fancy going to Ahmadabad.

You may ask – what’s not to like?

Well, being in a dry city for a week during a religious holiday being bitten to death by mosquitoes will do for starters.

Now that the game has progressed I could also add, the scoreboard, but it’s all too easy to be wise after the event.

Clearly, a draw is the absolute best we will be able to salvage from this debacle and even that now requires a miracle, so I won’t dwell too much on it.

I’m sure we will win in Mumbai, as we did in 2006, aided by the inspiration of top Northern boxer, hardcase Freddie “ The Jacamo Jab “ Flintoff.

But Midnight wouldn’t be doing his duty if he didn’t point out the flawed team selection for this current game and in fact, what an awful year 2012 has been thus far.

Why go with three seam bowlers on a dustbowl that starts to deteriorate on day one? Three Misused Seamers?

If Andy Flower was in charge of a Premiership Football team, no doubt he would be getting a 100% vote of confidence from the Chairman round about now.

All right , England did manage to beat an average West Indies side , but have been heavily beaten in turn by a poor Pakistan side in UAE and of course by South Africa at home. We are no longer Number One in Tests.

In addition, the handling of the KP situation has been a complete embarrassment.

To my mind Stuart Broad and his great cricketing mate Richard, no doubt called ‘Dick’ by all who know him, have escaped a lot of much deserved criticism for the setting up of that moronic “KP Genius” twitter account in the first place. They should both be thoroughly ashamed.

If we have to have a team half full of South Africans, as seems to be the case these days, then it makes little sense to me to ostracise by far the best player of this group.

Calm down Midnight…remember the blood pressure…. think of that Kingfisher lager at 20p a pint next week………

On to some good news that can’t wait until we go to the sub-continent.

Congratulations to James & Laura on the birth of their son Samuel James on the 20th October 2012.

Less than one month old, and already with bat in hand, the very first Addis Army baby.

On speaking to the proud father I understand that the Diplomat was considered as Godfather but ruled out, just in case the young lad’s first words were a torrent of vile Mancunian abuse and expletives after a day learning to talk with his uncle Gaz.

Returning to ‘TMS’ I must admit it has been great fun listening to Messrs Blofeld & Boycott at all hours of the morning this week.

Sir GB, especially, has been in splendid form.

Today at 5.30 am he recounted a sorry story about his breakfast in the hotel to illustrate that nothing ever goes to plan in India.

“Last night I ordered my smoked salmon for breakfast with the chef and when I got up the bloody salmon was still in the freezer.”

I suspect he must have acquired his voracious appetite for smoked salmon breakfasts whilst a raggedy-arsed kid playing cricket against a lamp-post in the cobbled streets of Wakefield in the 1940’s.

Maybe this is what is lacking in Broken Britain nowadays. A proper diet. Picture the scene – a council sink estate in Doncaster (apologies to Posh Margaret).

“Would you like a little more smoked salmon with your Eggs Benedict, Shannon, my little princess……?”

After the gastric problems Sir GB experienced in Colombo, which are well documented on an earlier blog, I am very surprised that he is ordering such rich fare for breakfast in the sub-continent. It can only end in tears once the salmon is defrosted by being left out in the sun and flies all afternoon tomorrow. Try My Salmon?

Now then, now then, now then.

I haven’t seen much evidence of the Barmy Army on Sky TV thus far, but I’m sure that a career change must be in the pipeline for their cheerleader, ahem, a Mr J.S.

In all honesty you have to feel total sympathy for the guy. He spends over 15 years developing a lucrative cricket image / persona and then it all goes up in smoke over the space of a few horrific days.

I’m surprised that BBC Newsnight haven’t brought out a special expose to focus upon this tragic story.

It has been suggested to me that Roger Av-it may henceforth become the Barmy Army “go to man”, but I doubt whether his repertoire of humour could last for the first innings of a T20 game, never mind a five match Ashes Test series. Mind you, at least we could all sing “He’s only got one joke!“

Back then briefly to the actual cricket.

Tremers, Freddie & and myself will be in India next week, Travelling to Mumbai Soon in fact, so there will be more authentic vicarious thrills on the next diary.

Steve will be joining us at some point, no doubt in his ‘Robin’ costume.

Five-O will also be joining us in Calcutta. He is enjoying a short non-cricket related holiday break before the third test in the war-torn region of Kashmir – yes, Kashmir is a real place, not just a Led Zeppelin track. No doubt he is travelling there via Syria and the Gaza Strip on a magic carpet.

Wycombe, I’m afraid, will not be joining us on this tour. He has finally discovered the drawbacks and time constraints of having a proper job.

Welcome to the real world mate.

Anyone else from Addis making the trip that I’m not aware of please get in touch before Wednesday!

See you soon, regards

Midnight xxx

PS – Does anyone know what ‘TMS’ really stands for? Is it ‘Too Many Saffers’?